Setting
Inga no Kusari exists in a world very similar to the real world, everything that exists in ours, exists in it, everything besides Bleach. It is a non-canon Bleach RPG, all the terms and organizations from the source material exist, the only exception is that none of the characters from Bleach appear on Inga no Kusari. You can find below a summary of key locations featured in the RPG. __FORCETOC__ The Mortal World 'Okumichi City' Okumichi (Oku Michi - Many Roads) is a bustling metropolis just like any other, filled with people, dreams and hopes that keep the lights alive through the night and turn the wheels of industry. It is a sprawling city in the Shizuoka Prefecture that moves over hills and is flanked on the East by the Japanese alps, and on the West by Suruga Bay which extends into the Pacific Ocean. It is said, that in Okumichi, the city of many paths, you can meet anybody you wish to find. It was founded some centuries ago where many roads and pathways between the fortresses and towns crossed, and it is from that origin that it derives it's name. First it was just the home of merchants and their families, making a living from the passing traffic, but as time went by the small community became first a village and then a bustling town, attracting trade in its own right instead of leeching off those moving to higher places. Throughout its history Okumichi has been a merchant's city, producing wares, most notably fabrics, for use across the entire prefecture and even farther North towards Tokyo and beyond. By the 1930s it was famous for it's myriad textile mills, and it held that fame for the next thirty years until the advent of computers and more reliable, mechanical, ways to make products. The mills began to decline as the focus of the city moved away from the factories on the Eastern side, the Obuna district, to areas closer to the coast, with towering skyscrapers springing up and business suits entering into the general attire of the city. Beyond all that, being a city of crossed paths, there has been a great focus on and around Okumichi in that world only a select few can see. Though not subject to any more Hollow attacks than any other town or city, it was one of the first places in Japan for the Germanic Quincy to establish a chapter and build an abbey, and has always been noted, if you know where to look, for it's odd goings on and extraordinary people. Today, Okumichi and it's derelict Eastern relative, Obuna Town, is the place to find what you are looking for, whatever prospects you seek, it's likely to be here. 'Obuna Town' Obuna Town represents a time long passed, dwarfed now by its buzzing metropolis cousin, it is still largely the industrial backbone to Japan that it was 'back in the day'. A town of factories and warehouses, much of it is now derelict, with only the workers at the few factory that remain open, their famalies and the poor inhabiting it. Due to the lower standard of living, the town is a hotbed of crime, teeming with gangsters and other unsavoury types who thrive off the lack of law enforcement that Obuna has. Despite all the bad reputation, however, it has many bars and eateries that rival its more expensive counterparts in Okumichi, and when the bustle of the city gets too much, Obuna offers a more sedate pace. Soul Society 'Seireitei' Seireitei (Court of Pure Souls) is the home of the Gotei 13 and the Central 46. It is a city, and has one large circular wall around it; there are four gates in the circular wall, each guarded by a gatekeeper hired from amongst the strongest men, without potential for shinigami-hood, in Rukongai. There is an invisible spherical dome extending out of the walls and covering Seireitei, that prevents harmful things from entering the city by going over or under the walls. The 13 Divisions exist within Seireitei, connected and divided by a vast and intricate network of corridors, walls, and roads aboveground, and an equally vast network of sewers and pipelines under it. There may or may not also be underground training chambers and hidden rooms. 'Rukongai' Soul Society's civilian population lives in this area. The Rukongai is divided into 80 Districts, shaped line rings around the central area of Seireitei. The greater Rukongai is divided by the points of the compass into four wider areas, for example, the southern Rukongai is obviously different from the northern Rukongai. The further one travels from Seireitei, the more impoverished the Districts become, with District 1 being the most comfortable and populated almost exclusively by high-ranking nobles and District 80 being the sort of place that people try to avoid thinking about before going to sleep; the other Districts are somewhere in between. There are several Shinigami Academy recruitment offices dotted around every district. The Districts of Rukongai do all the things they need to do for their own survival, and many of the Districts find that survival involves providing supplies to the shinigami in Seireitei; thus weapons manufacturers, chemical plants, farms, and many other industries exist, mostly within the single-digit Districts, for the benefit of the shinigami. There are also institutes of higher learning, although their resources are drastically fewer than those available within Seireitei. Souls always appear here, in one of the Districts, after purification; there are fields, forests, deserts—in essence it is a vast lot of different types of land. Some hollows prowl the forests, most probably through an opportune garganta ripped to Rukongai from Hueco Mundo by a menos. Hueco Mundo 'Las Días' The vast majority of Hueco Mundo is sand—stretching on into the horizon as far as one can see. Hollows roam freely in large numbers, and it is never silent. There are forests, but the trees are all sickly-white and stone-hard, their branches barren and leafless; it is not known how they grow. The occasional building sticks out of the ground, but very few of those are inhabited or even maintained. 'Las Noches' The grand city-palace of La Imperio del Hueco dominates the horizon of Hueco Mundo from wherever one stands. Beneath its dome the skies are bright and blue, contrasting with the eternal night of Hueco Mundo's barren sands. The latest incarnation of the fortress was completed in 2008, rebuilt upon the ruined remains of the previous Las Noches, which had stood deserted and derelict for over a thousand years. Its corridors and chambers, bearing a painted blue sky, are more like streets and courtyards, and between the great walls that hold the artificial clouds in the air are a labyrinth of thin passageways, for the urchins that keep the city running for the privileged few that rule over it. On the outside, the city is surrounded by watchtowers that ensure the safety of its inhabitants, and at the centre of the dome stand five tall and thin towers, the private chambers of the Espada. There is only one entrance to Las Noches, and through that huge archway able to fit even the largest of gillian lies a hallway that stretches from the edge of the city right through to the throne room that lies at its centre. The hallway is lined with statues depicting the highest ranking members of the empire's military force, the números.